The Dwarven Crucible
The Dwarven Crucible is a fortification built into the natural caverns of Mount Rann that reaches into its depths towards the former lair of Malaemarux, an ancient green dragon and dracolich who once threatened the kingdoms of Valen and Acheiris as the Emerald Terror and Queen of the Wosswood. Her attacks upon Morlaix and Naonend in -615 provoked the forming of the Emerald Alliance under Ilythyrra, which saw Malaemarux defeated but not slain. The men, elves, and dwarves instead sealed her within her own lair, turning it into her prison. They built the Dwarven Crucible to protect the Seal that imprisoned the dragon within the mountain. The crucible contained a large barracks, kitchens, a forge, a great dining hall and even a shrine to Moradin. At the heart of the Crucible lies the chamber of the Seal. The Seal itself prevents physical access into the Mountain, and also serves as the epicenter of a magical effect that prevents any attempt to teleport out of Mt. Rann and its depths. The seal has been weakened by time and by Zudagog's intervention and might be deactivated in a ritual requiring five powerful divine or arcane casters to collectively succeed at difficult somatic tasks and vocal chants. If the Seal is to be broken, Malaemarux would be free to escape from her prison, a powerful, vengeful, and hungry ancient green dracolich. The Crucible was protected for centuries by the Emerald Alliance until the rise of the First Empire; Imperator Drakon Terminus refused to uphold the tenets of the Emerald Alliance in 150, and allowed a band of orcs lead by a warlord called Zudagog to invade and conquer the Crucible. The orcs were defeated thanks to the intervention of the elf-paladin Lusalor and his twelve companions. Lusalor carried the blade Orc's Lament into battle and slew Zudagog, but died of the orc's venom shortly after, victorious in death as Malaemarux remained within Mount Rann. After Lusalor's death, the survivors of the battle buried him within a nearby crypt. Protection of the Crucible fell to the Bronzebrand family, with the Emerald Alliance becoming little more than a memory. The Heroes of Blackbridge In 5E.1485, House Bronzebrand lost the Crucible to Rast the Baneful, a tyrannical goblin king; Rast used the Crucible as the seat of his new empire and attempted to invade Blackbridge, but his armies were defeated and he was slain by Gareth Donnelly. In the years after Rast's death, his son, Kogtam, failed to control the Crucible, and lost it in a kobold invasion lead by an ancestor of Yiktaz. By 5E.1521, Yiktaz himself was ousted from the Crucible, prevented from opening the Seal and releasing his new goddess by the intervention of Sorzek, a goblin king who likened himself master and protecter of the Seal. Sorzek had also prevented the intervention of Strommuth Bronzebrand, a dwarf who sought to reclaim his family's lost Crucible and fallen honor, throwing him in the prisons of the mountain stronghold. Sorzek likewise controlled Nagzem the Killer, who made his own lair within the nearby Crypt of Lusalor. However, Sorzek was also unknowingly infiltrated by factions seeking to unleash the Emerald Terror, namely the green dragonblooded House Claudaerev of Wraemore, who had sent the sorcerer Afon to join the goblin king's court. In the fall of 5E.1521, the Heroes of Blackbridge attacked the Dwarven Crucible, pursuing the final clue about the affiliation of Markus Aldhard, the assassin who took the life of Father Tihomir. They rescued Strommuth, slew Afon, and reached the Seal, where Sorzek awaited, yet ultimately decided to barter with the goblin king, choosing to trade the Kobold King's head for Markus's medallion. Strommuth left, furious, but when the adventurers departed, the inquisitor Aldus met with him in secret and convinced him to return and retake the Crucible. Aldus and Strommuth would not meet again, and Aldus never spoke of the meeting before his untimely death at the Shambling Temple. The Heroes of Blackbridge returned to trade the head of Yiktaz for the medallion of Markus Aldhard that falsely flagged him as a diabolist, and then departed for Bregate. Fall of the Goblin King Some time after Yiktaz's fall, Sorzek was ousted by a band of dwarves lead by Strommuth Bronzebrand, who instituted himself as warden of the Seal. Viscount Malcolm Stenet of Ayles met Strommuth at Mount Rann after Sorzek's initial defeat and aided him in pursuing the goblin king further, pushing Sorzek back to the elven tower of Issethil. At the ruins of Issethil, Sorzek conjured a stone golem that slew two of Strommuth's brothers-in-arms and forced Malcolm and Strommuth's escape. After licking their wounds, Strommuth and Malcolm said their farewells, although Malcolm left accompanied by a dwarf named Gragarth Bronzebrand. Gragarth would journey with Malcolm and Silas Rooke from Bregate to the Ethereal Mountains, where Gragarth lost his arm to a white dragon's bite and returned home to hang up his axe. The remaining dwarves of the Dwarven Crucible remained at war with the goblins of Sorzek's kingdom of Issethil for a long time after, yet the Seal never fell. However, its magic was corrupted and twisted by the Sunscourge Heresy, by the opening of the Worldwound and its proximity to the rift's dark heart; the dwarves of House Bronzebrand were cursed with eternal life to protect its magic, growing mad within its halls while the Emerald Terror herself grew ever more insane within her fallen prison.